I'm a brand identity designer & illustrator with a specialty in mascot design. That's a fancy way of saying I make OCs for small businesses. Yep, just like your fanfics (if you're shipping the local event rental service with the entomology science youtuber, that is).
Cedar Side is my design studio. It's also my Tumblr, Instagram, Threads, and Pinterest username. It's also my website. That's where you go if you need a new logo and a few drawings of your new mascot.
I post art, history, jokes, and bugs. Ideally lots and lots of bugs. Maybe some floss picks. You'll find out about that eventually.
reddit severance fan: I just frame by framed every episode of the show and I found out that if you go to s1e5 at 23:56 and play it backwards it sounds like mark is saying "cold harbor"
tumblr severance fan: why isn't anybody talking about how this painting on the wall of marks house is a metaphor for his repressed grief
your coworker that watched severance in its entirety: I think lumon might be up to something
[ID: Boxed shaped clay sculpture of a Przewalski's horse. The horse's body is painted onto the box in the style of palaeolithic cave art, and the front half from the shoulders is realistic and three-dimensional, fully emerging at the end of the box. The horse is in a walking pose with the front left leg raised and the head tilted slightly sideways. Each photo shows a different angle. End ID]
Yeah, happy with this. Will be remaking it at some point, hopefully with less issues. I'll have to give it a coat of gloss as this clay is not hardy and needs protection.
Did you know I used to work at a sign shop? Did you know that it was my very first job out of college, in the middle of the pandemic?
The best, most effective solution isn't always one that's pretty... It's the one that does it's job well for as long as possible.
Remember all those "social distancing" signs you saw pop up at the beginning of the pandemic?I was responsible for making a bunch of those for local businesses in the Bay Area, back when I worked in a sign shop in 2021.
Those social distancing, "please wear a mask," type signs were extremely important in the continued functioning of essential industries like healthcare, grocers & food, and education. When companies started having folks come back to work, they needed even MORE signage.
When I first started working, we were also social distancing, wearing masks in the office, and using a LOT of hand sanitizer.
But because of our essentialness to slightly more important essential businesses, we were considered essential by proxy and not just allowed to stay open, but actively encouraged with lots of customers.
The signs I made for these businesses weren't complicated. In fact, all of them were deliberately bland and highly legible.
But their lack of personality perfectly suited their function of keeping as many people as possible safe and knowledgeable during the most dangerous pandemic of our lives.
We made floor decals to show folks how far away 6 feet actually is. We made "sterile" door stickers for the hospital. We made mask requirement signs for just about every tech company in the area. We made signs calling attention to hand sanitizer dispensers.
I still see many such signs still in use, still counting six-foot intervals and adorning front doors. Feels good to make a product that lasts.
A lot of my personal design philosophy stems from what I learned during this period of my career. A lot of my technical knowledge stems from there too. I wouldn't be the designer I am today without having had the experience of being an essential, in-office worker during a global pandemic.
It made concrete, very quickly, exactly how important clear, accessible communication is to the functioning of society.
These signs may not have been pretty or remarkable from an aesthetic standpoint. Many were downright ugly. But they helped keep us all safe, and they did their jobs well enough to continue being used after the social distancing and mask requirements were lifted.
I carry that lesson with me in my work today. The best, most effective solution isn't always one that's pretty... It's the one that does it's job well for as long as possible.
